Design Manifestos / America

Reading Response 10 / 26

The “First Things First” 64’ manifesto is a piece that I believe pertains well to the time that it was written. I think in 1964 there wasn’t as much thought included into design as we have now in our society. I like the ideas that he is bringing to the table talking about how we as a society should be creating design that benefits ourselves instead of constantly and solely selling objects. The 00’ design manifesto is a call to designers to detach themselves from the lucrative market of commercial design and focus on solving social and world problems. I believe there is definitely a happy medium when it comes to design. I think the author attacking bad design created to sell dog biscuits and leaving out great design that is promoting other types of commercial business like photography, footwear, etc. that is furthering design techniques and creating capital therefore making it possible for these design firms to do not profit work to help out society in a large way.
The excerpt from Jean Baurillard’s “America” I think is a shot at how our culture as Americans is very detached from the goings-on of society. That because of digital media and the introduction of technology that we are somewhat less aware of what we are doing and why we are actually here. I’m just taking a stab at it cause I didn’t totally get the piece but it was an interesting read anyway.